On March 3, the Salisbury Township school board held a monthly operations committee meeting via Zoom.

The first order of business was a review of the preliminary budget by Chief Financial Officer and Board Secretary Michael Taylor.

In a meeting last month, Taylor mentioned Gov. Tom Wolf’s planned education budget for the state would dramatically increase funding for Salisbury schools; however, this budget proposal at the state level was, “dead on arrival.” Without knowing for sure what the final numbers for the state budget will be, Taylor said it would not be prudent to include that information in the plans for the 2021-2022 school year budget for Salisbury.

A presentation by Chris Smith, Salisbury’s coordinator of technology detailed plans for a technology “refresh,” where a new fleet of devices would replace the ones currently in use in the district.

Salisbury is currently a 1:1 technology district, meaning each student has a device assigned to them. For students in grades K-1 each child has an iPad and in grades 2-12 each has an Apple MacBook Air laptop. There are also spare devices on hand to sub in for technology that needs to be repaired or replaced, as well as for administration, professional staff, support staff and the television studio.

These devices were leased for four years at a cost of $490,741 per year. Currently, this amount has been paid in full and the devices are owned outright. Smith is proposing going forward, the district maintain the 1:1 ratio for devices; however, it would transition all students in grades K-4 to using iPads, modified with a keyboard case.

Director of Teaching and Learning Kelly Pauling, extolled the benefits of this switch, explaining with the use of the iPad, compared to laptops, there seem to be no lost productivity tasks and new creative tasks were now available. Students in grades 5-12 will stay with Apple MacBook Air laptops. Also, a laptop cart will be obtained for the high school as well as maintaining stores of backups and devices for staff.

Smith said doing the refresh at this time would allow the district to lease these new devices for another four years at a cost of $472,088 per year.

Eying the expense for the district, Smith described the reasons why now is the time to update the technology for the student body. He cited advances in technology now available to students with new equipment, the current availability of grant funds, as well as the district being in a good spot to capitalize on the resale value of the owned devices that would be phased out.

The timeline for the refresh is for Salisbury to purchase equipment this spring and sell old inventory in June. This would allow professional development for staff over the summer and new devices could then be distributed to students in August. The board will vote on this refresh in March.

Director of Facilities William Brackett provided a short presentation on the potential purchase of a skid steer loader for use at Salisbury facilities.

The primary reason for buying this heavy equipment would be for snow removal. Snow piles up over the winter season and results in lost parking spots and slick surfaces.

The cost for contractor snow removal is high, with the bill for the 2021 season hovering around $6,000 to date.

Brackett would also like to purchase a snowblower and brush attachment more appropriate for sidewalk snow removal as well. The total cost for the new machinery lands at $58,000. A final decision on the purchase was not reached at the time the meeting concluded.

The next meeting of the operations committee will take place April 7 via Zoom.